Meaningful Kiss
by NickeltheRed
Summary: In which Seung Jo finally pushes her too far and Oh Ha Ni puts their marriage on hiatus.


On the night of their second anniversary, Oh Ha Ni ends up on Chris' couch, silently choking back her tears. "I'm sorry for coming here on such short notice. It's just...you live the closest to us now."

Though confused by her late-night intrusion, Chris is a comfort to her, making no more fuss about it and tries to remain considerate. "Don't be sorry. You can come over anytime."

Seung Jo comes for her later, pounding on the door. He hardly acknowledges Chris as she lets him inside. He struts forward with purpose, aiming straight for Ha Ni. Even in his waves of worry and frustration, he's still all swagger. He stops to stare down at her coolly. Chris can't read his stance right now as well as Ha Ni probably could. She thinks she sees uneasiness. Baek Seung Jo is proud by nature, true, but something is clearly threatening to make his walls crack.

"You followed me." Ha Ni surprisingly has found the nerve to tease him. Her voice is sad though she's smiling somewhat.

"Since when is _this_ a game for you to play?" He demands. "Get up and come home." He bends over, collecting her things. Her bag. Her coat. Her scarf. By then, he's already turning for the doorway again. He spares Chris a simple glance. "If she ever does this again, just call me first."

All Chris can do is nod, being in no place to test his temper or to come in between a man and his wife.

"Don't order her around. She's not married to you," Ha Ni stands in her defense. "Thank you for the hospitality, Chris."

"It's...no trouble, really."

"Oh Ha Ni." Seung Jo's impatient. Gritting his teeth.

" _Coming, lover!_ "

(That statement was sweetly over-exaggerated. And they all hear it.)

 _ **.**_

"Appa?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you happy I married him?"

"I told you I was."

"But are you happy about it now?"

He didn't look up from kneading his fresh dough. "Of course, as long as you're happy."

She sighed. Marriage was never supposed to be easy. But no one ever said it was going to this hard.

In high school, Seung Jo had started off as a mere infatuation, which gradually turned into a—more or less—innocent obsession. Who knew such an affection could become dangerously contagious? It lead Seung Jo to asking her to marry him in desperation, as some people had assumed, that he felt threatened. He was about to lose her to Joon Gu and he honestly knew he'd almost been deserving of that. (Seung Jo opened his mouth anyway and got what he wanted.)

Oh Ha Ni has orbited him for so long that they both grew very accustomed to it. To fall out of his range now and start seeking other worlds without him is near alarming.

But the thing is, Oh Ha Ni loses sight of certain dreams whenever Seung Jo walks into the room. There's so much out there to see, to hear, to absorb. And that's why geniuses like him are typically bored with those around them. If they knew everything about everyone, then what else is there? Ha Ni fantasized about traveling herself. Italy. China. Spain. Jamaica. They both have a decent income, so why wouldn't they go? She and her husband may become one of those couples who are spontaneous and cultured.

Seung Jo however, declines and soon reminds her that the hospital was a demanding place to work at. Doctors and nurses are always going to be needed. There is no time to fly off to different countries for their own luxury.

So, they stay home. They don't visit Italy, China, Spain, or Jamaica. Instead they became one of those _other_ couples who get a safe and steady routine down, and get tangled in their job hours.

They adore each other as much as they annoy each other, constantly bantering, teasing, and picking their emotions clean; but, for them that's normal.

It's okay. Not perfect, just okay.

Seung Jo brings her head down from the clouds whenever she daydreams for a second too long and Oh Ha Ni just blinks, only seeing him. _Only_ seeing him.

The story of her life. She can hardly remember a chapter of her past that didn't feature her husband.

(There was once her mom, and her dad, in their family apartment back then. But even those beloved memories are blurry and not quite whole.)

 _ **.**_

She doesn't bother touching him all afternoon. She's personally tired of being the main initiator when it came to their levels of intimacy—or the true lack of thereof. (Notice there's no baby yet either.)

When they go out to eat with the family, Seung Jo takes notice. She can tell. He looks at her hands resting in her lap, and at his own hands, then he catches her gaze, silently wondering why she isn't making deliberate contact.

She acts like the fool they believe her to be, naïve of her own mannerisms and pretends not to see.

 _ **.**_

"Oh Ha Ni," he breathes out, counting the seconds, trying to keep his rage in check. "It _always_ comes back to this!"

"Then what are we doing?" she fires back on the verge of a heated frenzy. He is aware that he's tugging and pulling her heart strings in several different directions. Like he has before. But, tonight, he's just _so_ exhausted. Long days at work, long nights at home. It's taking a toll. He can't fix it now. Ha Ni huffs. "What I am supposed to do? What do you want from me?"

He shakes his head, tossing a pillow at her. "I don't know. For once I don't have the answers you're looking for."

"If you don't know, maybe you shouldn't even be married to me anymore then!"

"Well. That might be one of the smartest thing you've ever said." He tenses right after that, immediately closing his eyes. She stills. The anger wanes to hurt. He's already regretting it. He can't stand to see her like this. "No, wait, Ha Ni-ah," he tries again, more contrite and no longer annoyed, "that's not what I—"

She backs off and turns, _runs_ , from him, releasing a sob.

It's too late. He can tell it's no use by the way she refuses to let him follow her outside, to _touch_ her even; he's finally taken it one step too far over the line and she's done with him. It's the very last mistake she can tolerate.

He lingers behind and waits up for her till morning. But Oh Ha Ni doesn't show. She sends him a text instead saying she's moving out.

 ** _._**

Jumping two months ahead:

Seung Jo's sitting in his car, staring out the window—scanning the crowds—hoping for maybe even a small glimpse of a familiar head of long wavy dark hair that's pulled back by a colorful ribbon.

" _Don't be stubborn_ ," his brother says to him over the phone, somehow sounding far older and wiser than he. " _Call her again. Chances are you know it's your fault_." And Eun-jo hangs up on him.

He throws his phone aside, sighing.

For such an ordinary girl, Oh Ha Ni was actually, uniquely extraordinary. She's had several men (himself included) crumbling, tripping, and falling under her spell of sheer devotion and innocence.

She's clawed her way into his heart and left scars to prove it. She's seared into thoughts, in his blood. She's his poison of choice. His curse. She's the one aspect of his life that makes him question his competence as a person, she's the one thing he still just _can't_ get right.

His wife—his first real love—left him and now won't talk to him.

 ** _._**

No, she might have not been gifted with many talents from birth; not in art, not in logic, not in a sport like tennis, or even self-discipline. But she sure as hell _isn't_ the sort of girl to be out late during the night, carelessly downing alcohol, because she's a nurse practitioner at one of the top hospitals in the country for heaven's sake!

Yet here she is anyway, tipping back shot after shot after shot while the violin music keeps playing on in the distant background.

(She's always been the good girl. She had once praised her father for raising her right—whatever _right_ is. She had figured back then she was fortunate enough to just turn out as healthy and as optimistic as she did despite what was clearly lacking in her life.)

It's not exactly busy here at this hour. Most of the other customers have left, carrying on about their own business elsewhere. It's not even really a dance club. It's really...more of a restaurant with a bar that will serve her anything cheap and that has a kick.

She's been drunk before, yes, but this time it's deliberate. A lot of people drink in times of heartache, right? To drown their sorrows? To block out the pain even if it's only temporarily?

Beyond the pounding steadily growing louder in her head, Ha Ni knows she has a number of missed phone calls from _him_. Oh well. She's not answering tonight. She has no real motive to.

That's when a handsome stranger emerges. He comes up beside her where she was standing, her long hair swaying back and forth in front of her eyes.

"Having a rough night?"

Ha Ni turns to him, eyes glazed over. He indeed flaunts strong and pretty face from what she could make out. His looks could easily rival her husband's. And Ha Ni can already sense that he's a good man merely by the way he's currently watching her. There's a genuine level of concern there. So it's a definite possibility that he must have noticed her from afar, while just passing by, and somehow knew she was troubled.

Nevertheless, Ha Ni's following remark is casual. Nonchalant. Somewhat dismissive. "Is it that obvious?" She knocks back one more shot.

Alcohol has the _opposite_ effect on her than it does over the majority of the human population. Most people will let go of their tension when they're intoxicated. They'll get all rowdy, excited, and do things they normally wouldn't do sober to amuse themselves. For Ha Ni, she deflates. She becomes a darker version of herself. Her passions dim, and her positivity melts into total distain and sarcasm. When she's drunk, she usually realizes just how _much_ she has been disregarding and suppressing. She finally feels that quiet sadness that has been festering deep below in her core, and it consumes her once more.

"You look like you just got kicked in the stomach," the stranger expresses honestly. "Like you failed someone."

"Well, I am used to failure," she notes, shaking her head clear. "I have faced failure more times than I can count. Why did I think my _marriage_ would be any different?"

"Look—I—" he pauses. He doesn't seem to be thrown off by this, not totally. Or that repulsed by her response. That's just an answer he wasn't counting on straightaway. Maybe he thinks she's going to hide information on purpose, because that's the civil thing to do, since they don't really know each other. But in fact she's more than willing to pour out her heart to him and she's not even the mood to _care_ what he'll think of her otherwise. "—it's none of my business. I just thought I'd make sure you could make it out of here well enough on your own. It's raining, and it's sort of a wild neighborhood too."

"Are you always this kind to women you don't know?"

"I guess it's only the ones I happen to notice."

Whoa. Cue Prince Charming to the rescue.

And suddenly, she remembers something else related to that. Reality hits her. Hard. It isn't sadness she's been harboring. It's fury. She's so _pissed off_ _._

 ** _._**

Night has passed.

The first detail Ha Ni becomes fully aware of is she's _not_ in her bed. Or in her husband's bed. She's waking up, light-headed and disheveled in a bed she can't place. She doesn't recognize the room either. Not only that, but she's _out_ of her dress. She's only in her underthings beneath the sheet.

Picnic-stricken, she pulls herself up and tries to recall precisely what happened after she had left the restaurant.

Oh, wait.

She was talking to someone for a while out in the rain, on the street corner, in a taxi, and then they were on a sofa wrapped up in warm blankets. That's something, at least. She must be with Prince Charming. This his apartment, so she has to assume. It's a nice apartment too, obviously. Homey, comfortable.

But she can't waste time admiring the view. She needs to leave.

Slipping out from the covers, she retrieves her little black dress from floor (it's the one that Omma had _suggestively_ bought for her weeks prior), and she yanks it back on quickly, zipping up the side, redoing the ribbons. It's a bit wrinkled from letting it be air-dried, and the left strap is sliding down her shoulder in the rush of things.

With her matching coin purse and red heels in hand, Ha Ni makes for the exit, tiptoeing as she goes. The main hallway is dead silent so she thinks she's in the clear, until she enters the kitchen and spots Prince Charming standing there near the sink preparing his breakfast.

"You're awake," he muses. "Trying to sneak away?"

Ha Ni halts in her tracks, almost stumbling forward. She catches herself and bites her lip before turning back around. Her cheeks, understandably, are burning red with shame and even frustration. "Yah. I'm not that type of girl," she admits loudly; although at moment, she doesn't _sound_ too convincing. "I should be leaving, anyway. What I am doing in your house, in the first place, and waking up in your bed naked?"

"You weren't naked." He knows this for a fact somehow. "And you started to strip down on your own accord and happened to put yourself there, saying how tired you were. I let you. I slept on my sofa last night."

Ha Ni is usually a curious girl. Even when she senses it's time to keep her mouth sealed shut, she doesn't. She never stops talking. "So...you're saying...," there's relief and hope glistening in her eyes. "You didn't...we didn't...do anything last night that we shouldn't have?"

"No. You were intoxicated," he reminds her, "and clearly not in your right mind."

"Wow," she reflects, frankly taken aback. "I'm...sorry."

"I thought you said you were finished with your habit of apologizing all the time for things you can't control..."

"I said that? When?"

"Last night. You lectured me for a few hours straight. You actually said a lot of things."

"I did? What else? That's—no—no, this is crazy," she protests, trying to stabilize her common sense. She doesn't know where she is, what time it is, or why she's wasting time debating with a complete stranger! "I don't even know your name!"

"Jin Kae Sun. I also told you that six times last night and you still called me Jin Tu Sun every time. You're Oh Ha Ni."

"I'm married," she declares abruptly.

"Currently, you're separated. That was your choice."

She is mindful of that. And the truth always hurts. This time, it's a real slap in the face.

She says nothing.

"Hey," he attempts to save the conversation from going too sour. "I just made breakfast if you're hungry. Alright? At least drink something before you go. You might get dehydrated. Besides, girls who feel venerable and go cry on the street get strange looks. Sit down. Get your bearings together, then leave."

"Are you always this kind to women you don't know?" (She's repeating herself now, but she may not remember that.)

Kae Sun knows this and he has to smile at that. "I guess it's only the ones I happen to notice."

 ** _._**

She learns that in retrospect, timing is everything.

She still doesn't _regret_ her marriage. Not completely.

It's just...she wishes that she and Seung Jo could have taken their time to enjoy _getting_ to where they ended up, in his car under the starlight, kissing in the park on Christmas Eve. The bottom line? They should have dated longer. That's it. They should have explored their love longer. More importantly, _she_ should have figured out her dreams much _sooner_ than all this. Maybe then, the wedding would have been twice as wonderful. She would've been twice as comfortable with him, twice as happy. She'll never know what _could've been_. This is where they are now. With _him_ still living in their little couple's villa they had purchased over a year ago together, while she's dwelling in some small one-person-sized apartment in a private complex located a few miles west of the hospital.

Whether two people are wading in or out of the waters of romance, either way, they should be friends first and foremost. She remembers she used to believe in that. Once. What ever happened to her old school principals? Oh. Right. Her husband.

Wanting the same things in a relationship sometimes isn't enough to make it _last._

Sure, they still _see_ each other during their medical rounds, and perhaps he'll be the one trying to corner her in the corridors, urging her to talk with him, coaxing her to tell him where she is, how she is, and _who_ has she been spending her time with otherwise. It's almost funny...how their roles are so reversed nowadays. But Oh Ha Ni is the one losing her patience with his attempts to make excuses and his bribes to come back home. She's done with their fractured dynamic, their endless cycle of her being obsessive and him being possessive.

She needs more time to _think_ before she's ready to act like a wife again. (Because they do things out of order, remember?) She needs space. This...isn't her anymore. She has more self-discovering to do yet.

With her back pressed up against the wall and having him glare at her like that, and the only barrier she has left to separate now them is the clipboard she's holding to her chest, something inside of her breaks under the pressure. She finally raises her head, her eyes watery and beautiful through her dark lashes.

She tells him flat out: "I don't know who I am when I'm with you."

His expression suddenly mirrors hers and it splinters a bit on the surface. His mouth parts in silent awe and disbelief, as though he can't process what she's saying.

Ha Ni sighs. _You heard me._ "My schedule will change soon. I'll only be working nights." And then she walks away, leaving him there alone to ache. _Not today._

Again, the timing just feels off.

 ** _._**

Seung Jo drives uptown to visit his family. When he arrives, he finds Omma lounging across the sofa, crying dramatically. Again. His (currently older) little brother is sitting next to her, frowning at the sight.

"What's wrong now?"

They both jump and snap their heads up to glower back at him.

"I'm mourning the loss of my future grandchildren, you idiot of a son!" Omma shrieks. "How could you ever do this to our Ha Ni, and after everything you two have been through before this? It's revolting!"

"How many times do I have to tell you?" Seung Jo clearly must repeat himself. "She left me."

"She left you! Yes! But why won't she answer _my_ calls? She only talks to Eun Jo nowadays!"

Seung Jo's blood runs cold as his attention shifts and lands solely on his brother. "You've...you've been talking to her?"

Unfazed, Eun Jo shrugs. "I've been to her new apartment a few times."

"How did you manage that?"

"She let me."

"Where is it?"

"I don't think I should tell you that."

"Why? So you're on her side now?"

"I'd rather take her side than take yours. I don't want to be disowned by my own mother."

"What a smart boy I've got," Omma pats his head fondly, pleased to hear those words. "A _true_ genius, unlike somebody else I know."

Seung Jo's reached his limit instantly and he turns back around. "Fine. I'm going." He can't handle this today. He feels strained as it is. He can't add his mother's disapproval to the equation, especially not this time.

"Good!" Omma calls out to him. "And don't come back here until you have your wife on your arm again and you've gotten her pregnant!"

 ** _._**

So if a book falls from the shelf, it will most likely hit Ha Ni on the head. If there's an extra step at the bottom of a staircase, she'll surely miss it and trip. If there's a door she's not that familiar with, her fingers are bound to get caught when she goes to lock it. Therefore, when that one surgical knife manages to slide off the tray Oh Ha Ni was just carrying and it slices her palm open in the process, Seung Jo is not _that_ surprised by it. Despite what her heart wants, and no matter how hard she thrives to better herself, his wife is a serious natural-born klutz.

The two nurses hovering her right now are fretting over the fresh blood flowing out, but since he just happened to be nearby at that instant, noticing something went wrong, he naturally takes charge. Sprinting up to them, he inspects Ha Ni's hand shortly before he informs their colleagues not to worry; he'll treat it, and with that, he pulls Ha Ni away into the vacant storage room around the corner for some clean bandages.

They sit on matching stools, facing each other as he fosters her injury and continues to wrap it up slowly and carefully. "It looks worse than it actually is. I don't think there's a need for stitches."

"Thank you," she mutters.

"Just try to be more careful next time transporting sharp objects." He doesn't look up from his fingers working and stroking around hers. "I'm honestly glad you've been able to survive this far without me watching over you every day."

"I have, actually."

After another moment of silence, he admits it to her. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

"So when are you coming home?"

"Seung Jo," Ha Ni retorts curtly. "We're at work. I'm not talking about this here."

He snatches her wrist once she tries to leave and brush past him. He turns, blocking her path and shuts the door before she gets too far. "We _have_ to talk here because I have no idea where you go when we're _not_ here. I hate that. What will it take for you to realize how much I love you?"

"If...you really love me that much, then you wait." She looks straight into his eyes. "You'll wait for me to be ready to stay with you again. You wait, and you wait, and you wait. And then when it finally feels like you're about to rip apart and die inside, you wait some more."

"Why?" Poor boy. While no one else is watching, his insecurities start to shine through, and she knows she's the cause of it. He already pitiful as it is. She makes him imperfect. "Why, Ha Ni?"

"Because in the end, you know it's going to be worth it."

 ** _._**

Seung Jo stares down her father positioned behind the noodle bar. But since this is his elder and his father-in-law to boot, that's all he can do. Threatening the man for new information is out of the question. "Has she spoken to you lately?" (He definitely means Oh Ha Ni and they both know it.)

Her father nods. "A little."

"Where is she staying?"

"I'm sorry, Beak Seung Jo." Her father appears to be torn on the inside. "I promised her I wouldn't say. She...she has to be the one to tell you, not me. I must force myself to respect that and keep my daughter's trust."

Regrettably, Seung Jo doesn't have much left at all to use in his defense at that moment. The single lifeline he does have is: "I'm your son-in-law. She's my wife."

"Not according to her you're not. Right now, she's choosing to be independent from you. Give her space. She'll come back to you eventually. She always does."

However, Seung Jo catches a certain sadness lurking behind her father's voice then and it makes his gut clench, because he hears something else...

(" _I surrendered her over to your care for the rest of her life, Beak Seung Jo. And what you've done in return is hurt her again.")_

 ** _._**

Pretty soon, Ha Ni begins to compare her marriage-on-hiatus with food of all things.

There are usually bowls of varying sauces and treats placed off to the side during a meal, which might look rather appetizing, though still, it's the main dish a customer should focus on. That's what they paid for. That's what they invested their interest in.

Seung Jo had never does this. Or at least, that's from her own personal experience.

First, there was Yoon He Ra. Seung Jo was rather comfortable with her at school due to their similarities, but as Ha Ni thinks harder about it now, He Ra was basically live bait. Back then her husband would have only used Ha Re's name in front of her to goad her, making sure it stung her inner wounds in all the right ways. Later, there was that loud, prissy honeymooner with the questionable new husband. She had latched onto Seung Jo's arm so fast at the resort Ha Ni couldn't even _believe_ it at the time. Apparently, the woman's motives and schemes were transparent to Ha Ni and Ha Ni alone (and people say that Seung Jo is the smart one... he didn't even see what that woman was trying to do). Both husbands then were blind to the shift in power, which only set fire to Ha Ni's jealously streak unfortunately. Even after Seung Jo had found out that she wasn't wrong, that it was all a vile set-up to get Ha Ni out of the picture, that she actually had the right to shout at him to stop touching _that woman_ — he had even neglected to _apologize_ for any of it, not once.

In Ha Ni's opinion, _"Hey. You look prettier when you smile,"_ does not quite have the same meaning as, _"I'm Sorry, Ha Ni."_

Go Ji Soo herself was, terrifyingly, a similarly story. She had lied, put on an act, belittled Ha Ni when no one was looking, played the victim, just for the sake of winning back Seung Jo's affections.

What's worse, it didn't seem to _end_ from there. Everywhere Ha Ni turned, pretty women on the street, the nurses at work, the new waitress at her father's noodle shop even, never understood why Ha Ni was married to Seung Jo, or more specifically, why _he_ married her. That bites. Ha Ni was affected by this fact more than she could express in words, more than she wanted it to. Just because _those_ girls personally deemed her unattractive and unworthy of his attention...that automatically meant her _husband_ who was wearing a _wedding_ _ring_ was still fair game? Seriously, what? What alternate reality were they from to have them think that sort of behavior was acceptable?

(In fact, there's been more girls than Ha Ni can count. She's lost track some time ago. On and on, it goes. They stare at her, then stare at Seung Jo like they're not supposed to align, like they don't make any sense. Girls compete with her, subtly trying to outshine her. Trying to get Seung Jo to look their way instead. Girls are mean. The mind games they play are rude and spiteful. Ha Ni only noticed it happening before her husband did because she _is_ a girl. She knows how girls think. And whenever Seung Jo figured it out afterwards, it'd somehow be her fault, as if _she_ was the one who started it the whole rivalry.)

Needless to say, it took Ha Ni a while to cope with all of her jealousy, to control it—so she had thought—but, being on her own like this, with a fresh perspective on her past, without anybody else whispering nonsense into her ear, she knows the true answer now.

It wasn't that she was _constantly_ jealous. In realty, it's really because she wasn't feeling appreciated. She was punished by her husband for being forward. She was punished for having a few goddamn _morals_ and she did what she had to in order to defend them.

 ** _._**

It's autumn, nearly marking the eleven months (plus seven days) they've been apart.

Ha Ni wakes early to a steady knocking on her apartment door. With nothing but a long bed-shirt thrown on and having wild pillow hair she opens the door to find _him_ standing there, chest heaving as if he just ran forty minutes straight to get here.

She doesn't really have the chance to ask why he's here at this time or _how_ he finally found her secret lair before he blurts out, "I'm sorry."

"Seung Jo, I—"

"—No. Just come home, Ha Ni-ah. I am begging you," he advances on her and she backtracks a step; two steps, three steps. "Come home. The hospital even sent me home yesterday because I'm not even thinking properly. I'm losing sleep over you. Are you happy about that?"

She raises her chin, jaw set, seeing a raw feeling in his eyes. "If I agree, you have to appreciate me," she bargains freely. "I can't be with you anymore if you don't know how to."

"Ha Ni-ah! Would I have married you if I really didn't—?"

"—Let me finish!" she snaps, cutting him short. He blinks, recoils a little, then nods reluctantly, still willing to hear her out. "I know...you think I get ahead of myself sometimes, that I'm impulsive, and I get jealous of other girls way too quickly and it just ends up being an annoyance to you. But I realized that's not _always_ the case. The other women who still find you attractive will cling to your arm, poke fun at me, and smile up at you like they've won you in a contest. And _you_ don't care that I'm right there watching it. You don't seem to think it's a big deal, so you don't tell them to stop. Not in front of me, anyways. But you _need_ to start caring that _I_ don't care for that! It's not fair to me. I'm the one you are married to, and I'm _tired_ of being the only one who has point that out all the time. It was me making all the accommodations between us!"

"Ha Ni-ah, I am already in love with my shackles."

"Don't joke with me right now! That's another thing! When I _tell_ you I am serious, you _have_ to take me more seriously. Don't brush me off with a kiss and a witty remark and believe that's good enough. Because it's not! And it's not about me putting you in shackles and throwing away the key. It's about my morals, my self-esteem. I've tried really hard to be _good_ when I was with you, to be perfect, to be happy— but sometimes it was just _you_! I tend to compete with other women over you because you don't worry about calling off the race! For _once_ , Beak Seung Jo, take a step back and look at the situation from my view. What if a strange boy happened to think that I was pretty? And that boy has the gull to start flirting with me right in front of your eyes? Even though he sees you—my husband—standing there beside me, he still thinks it's acceptable to pat my arm and stroke my hair? What if I kept silent that whole time? I don't bother setting boundaries and defending your place in my life."

"But you're married," Seung Jo states the obvious, almost insulted. _You can only love me_. "What wouldn't you say anything to him?"

"Exactly. Why wouldn't I?" And for the first time in a very long time, Ha Ni's the clever one. She knows he walked right into her mental trap. He realizes it too soon enough. He swallows hard as she continues on, "The point is, it sucks. I know at the end of every day, I have to be in charge of my own happiness. I have to learn how to improve my own opinion of myself to be better, to feel better...but it _is_ humiliating when you forget to regard me. You can't just think about me. You have keep showing it. Tell me with words I can understand, that you need me, that I am irreplaceable."

"Alright. I get it. Joke less when you're mad, realize how big and grown up you are now, and push girls off me more often when we're in public." He's giving in, bending to her all the way and they both know how rare that is. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Oh Ha Ni closes in on him, leaning in, sure and playful. Her hands tug on his leather jacket once and slide up to clutch his neck. "Kiss me like you mean it."

He does. Slowly, but with a passion, and he instantly recalls why he's missed her so much. The wounds are healing. "Come home." He whispers against her lips between breaths. "Please come home, Ha Ni-ah."

"Okay. I will."

* * *

 **I don't think I am the only one who has a fickle love/hate relationship with this particular drama. This was the result of me hoping for more a stronger character-progression for Oh Ha Ni. There were definitely some face-palm moments with her. And I came to believe that, realistically, something like this would happen to their marriage eventually.**


End file.
